It's What's on the Outside That Counts
by Verlesque
Summary: Shilo is free at last but she has not had time to cope with the events of the opera. GeneCo is still up in the air due to some technical errors. Shilo's sickness isn't easy to fight. And Zydrate is addictive.Grillo.
1. Genetic Emancipation

After the opera Shilo went to her mother's tomb. As she lay facedown on the cool stone of her mother's grave she felt as though she might have been the corpse inside it. She was finally free, and yet everything that kept her grounded, everything that defined her life, was stripped from her in a single night. Without those guiding walls she found herself falling apart in the dark grave. Her body ached and her hands were bloodied from pounding the tombstone with her fists. She was filthy, cold, and if she did not eat soon she would starve. It was going on a week now since the opera, and her belly roared in desperation. She had to eat, because even though she had nothing to live for but herself she did not want to die.

Shilo sat up as slowly as she could and still managed to make herself dizzy. In the midst of the fuzz she thought she heard her father, but he wasn't speaking to her like he usually did. He did not call her Shilo. "Kid. Are you there?" Shilo groaned and positioned herself against the wall of the tomb so she could lean her head back, and she closed her eyes as she heard the door creek open.

One black boot hit the dirt floor in front of Shilo, sending up a little cloud of cool, pungent dust. Graverobber kneeled next to her, half-wondering if she was still alive. He reached out and touched her shoulder, resting his hand there. She opened her eyes then and he sighed with relief. " Damn, kid. I thought I was going to have to check you for Zydrate for a second. He smiled, she didn't. "Thanks." She said, spending her last dose of sarcasm. "What are you doing here, kid?" "I don't know I just ended up here. I'm hungry though. I was about to go back to my dad's. You know, to eat and-" "And you weren't planning on going alone, right?" "It doesn't matter, I'm not sick anymore." She was whispering now, straining to stay awake. "Trust me I'm not worried about you being sick, it's the rest of the world you gotta watch, kid." All that escaped Shilo was a noise that sounded remotely like "Ugh." "Come on kid, let's get you home." "Thanks" Shilo breathed. No sarcasm this time, only exhaustion. Graverobber picked her up like a baby and began to trudge through the graveyard towards the Wallace residence.

When he had managed to open the gait and front door he was unsure where to set Shilo down. He sat her in a musty looking high-backed chair in the parlor and began to search for a kitchen. The door next to the staircase seemed to be a match so he started to search for food. He was hungry too and he found much more food stored in the dark wood cabinets and chilled in the ancient refrigerator than Shilo could eat in a month. Graverobber thought for a moment about what she might like to eat and decided not to fix her much, just incase her stomach couldn't handle it.

In a few moments he had brought her some toast and juice, only to find her sound asleep in the chair. "Kid! Hey, kid you gonna eat something?" "Shilo" She whispered, without opening her eyes. "What?" "My name is Shilo." She opened her eyes then, just for a moment before rolling them shut again. "Whatever kid. Look do you have a bed or something? You don't need to sleep in that chair." "Upstairs." She murmured. Without a word Graverobber picked Shilo up again and began to carry her up the staircase. He found her room easily enough and after making a face at her plastic-shrouded bed he laid her down, and covered her with her strewn blankets.

He left the room with a single glance over his shoulder. She was lovely, and innocent, and so undeserving of this whole circumstance. He wondered who would take care of her now; now that everyone she'd ever known was making friends with a less lively crowd. "Poor kid," He said before grabbing a piece of toast and walking out the front door. When she woke the next morning he was there, perched in her window, looking out over the city.


	2. Medicate Immediatly

"Hey, kid." Graverobber said when he heard Shilo shift to see who was in her room. He spoke quietly as if he was trying to hold on to the silence of the early morning. "What are you doing here?" Shilo asked, wondering for a moment how she got back to her dad's house, then she began to remember the night before. "Are you alright, kid?" "Yeah, I remember now. It's that damned medicine! It makes me forgetful. Did you stay here last night?" She inquired, sitting up in bed. "No, I had to make a run for some Z. I got back an hour ago and I…well I didn't want to wake you but I didn't want you to wake up dazed so I waited." "What time is it?" "Ten something, did you sleep?" He asked, eyeing her. "Like a brick, but I had weird dreams," Shilo confessed. She had nearly screamed when she woke up and saw someone else in her room, and she'd hoped he hadn't seen her shock.

Graverobber got up from the window and crossed the room to Shilo's bedside. He handed her a glass of water off her bedside table and Shilo took it with shaky hands. There was a time that her dad did this very thing for her, every morning. The monitors he used when she was sick still sat, silent and useless, on the left side of her bed. Graverobber leaned into her on her right side and touched her shoulder. "Kid, what's on your mind? What did you dream about?" She turned away and looked behind Graverobber off into the glare of the city. It was a mass of poison smog and burnt orange light, which sputtered out from the dying sun.

The orange glow bathed Shilo's face and cast a deep shadow over Graverobber's exaggerated features. " I dreamt of my dad", she breathed. "I dreamt of him giving me my medication." As she looked up into Graverobber's white face her eyes pierced him like darts tipped with shards of ice. He was taken back by the subtle silver of Shilo's tears, which welled up into pools in her tired eyes. " He was dressed as a Repo man. There was blood everywhere!" She began to cry then, slow trickling droplets that felt cool as Graverobber hesitantly wiped at them. "It was only a dream, kid it's…" Shilo turned away as he spoke. "It was my blood" she interjected. " It was my blood! I tried to back away from him and he…" Shilo coughed as she sobbed, and beads of sweat rose up on her forehead. "He was holding my intestines and pulling them towards him!" She mimed pulling Graverobber's intestines out and he stood up. Graverobber backed away from her and she continued to cough as though she might vomit. " He was killing me!"

She convulsed, hard, and her eyes went glassy. "Blood pressure warning, blood pressure warning. Medicate immediately! Medicate immediately!" Her wristband began its usual alarm and Shilo clutched at her stomach. "Help!" Shilo pleaded. "It hurts!" Graverobber rushed to her side and placed his hand under her neck as she began to seep into unconsciousness. "Kid, hold on! Hey! Wake up. Shilo please wake up!" Graverobber begged. It was too late though. Shilo had passed out and lay limply in his arms. "Jeese, kid." Graverobber leaned Shilo against his elbow and began to brush her hair away from her face with his other hand. When her wig came away from her baldhead he jumped. He looked around the room in a panic, embarrassed that he had managed such shenanigans at her weakest moment.

In his search around Shilo's room he found a porcelain head. He laid Shilo down and placed her fallen wig onto the head with as much respect as he could muster, then turned to the little white mass that lay folded on the bed. Shilo was a pale little flower, blending in with her white sheets. He covered her up, pulled her piano bench to the side of her bed, and waited.


End file.
